The Darién Gap

We’re planning to go to South America next, in order to continue Herbie’s World Tour. We’ve already driven across all 48 lower United States, we went to Canada and traveled through Mexico and all Central American countries. There is just South America left. But why haven’t we been there yet?

We actually wanted to go there last time but we couldn’t because first of all our passports were completely marked and full with visas and secondly we didn’t want to ship our car and camper at that time. Many people forget that there is a “huge” gap between Panama and Columbia – at least for travelers who depend on roads like we do.

The so-called Darién Gap is a 54 miles (87 kilometers) stretch of rainforest in the very south of Panama where they tried to build a road in order to complete the Pan-American Highway system but they failed. So there is still this gap and the only way to do it is going by plane or either by boat around it.

The Pan-American Highway is with 29,800 miles (47,958 kilometers) the world’s longest driveable road and goes all the way from Alaska down to Tierra del Fuego (Argentina).